This is the first Trek show I've watched/I have no backstory on any of these people, so I went up and looked her character up. So, she's mother of that black-haired gal on The Next Generation, eh? (Not that I watched that show or anything, but it's on all the frickin' time.) The way she was hitting on Odo like a Mack truck was absolutely hysterical. And Odo's numerous groans and eyerolls! Heh.

Majel Barret has been the longest-standing figure in the Star Trek franchise. Some interesting facts about her; She was married to the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry. She's the voice of every single Star Trek computer after the original series, where she played Nurse Chapel. She voiced the animated series and was the executive producer for the above mentioned Andromeda.

I never minded the translator microbes. To me they seemed to be like a partially autonomous mentally-enhanced ability, microbially powered that is. The default state is 'on' but a concious effort to not use them could be fairly simple to do. I remember an episode where the crew (held prisoner) started talking to each other in their own languages to cover somebody else tried to sneak by or something.

How do you explain the foreign words we still hear, Thomash?

A concious choice, for exclamation or to add a little flair maybe. Their slang and expressive methods are different.

A conscious choice in speaking? So you can control what the listener's microbes receive? I thought the microbes worked on the receiver.

This is more confusing than I thought.

This is more confusing than I thought.

Oui oui.

In some way, there's got to be some kind of give and take between talker and listener. Maybe the microbes work telepathically with each other on the subconscious level. I'll call it the Hagen Exchange. How else would the microbes be able to traslate a new language like, English?

How else would the microbes be able to traslate a new language like, English?

See why I hate them?

Bring back the Babel Fish.

I knew they looked like DeLuises! Thank you.

I think of the DeLuise clan as Dom's Revenge for all the Hollywood types that pegged him as a one-note sidekick.

Bring back the Babel Fish.

Yeh, or take the Simpson's route with Kodo and Kang.

"...by an amazing coincidence, both languages are exactly the same."

The only Trek ep I watched before DS9 was the one where Joan Collins was not a bitch and Kirk had to let her die to prevent Hitler from winning the war.

"City of the Edge of Forever," written by Harlan Ellison.